In general, a refrigerator is a home appliance for storing foods at low temperature inside a storage compartment that is opened and closed by a refrigerator door, and employs cold air generated by heat exchange with refrigerant circulating in a refrigeration cycle to cool the inside of the storage compartment and preserve stored foods under optimum conditions.
Such refrigerators are increasingly being manufactured with larger dimensions and multi-functions due to changing consumer eating habits and luxury-oriented buyer preferences, and refrigerators are being marketed with a wide selection of configurations and convenience features intended to improve user convenience.
Compared to related art refrigerators, such newer refrigerators are often shipped and delivered with their doors detached to facilitate transport, due to their increased size. Also, doors must be detached from the main body in some cases for service and maintenance.
However, because a refrigerator door is mounted to a refrigerator main body through a fixed hinge assembly with a strong coupled force through the use of bolts, screws, etc., it is virtually impossible for a user to detach or reattach a door of the user's own volition.
Accordingly, various hinge assemblies are being developed to allow a user or a technician to quickly and easily detach or reattach a refrigerator door.
First, in Korean Registration No. 0728385, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety, a fastening bracket is provided on the main body of a refrigerator, and a hinge plate pivotably coupled to a door is coupled to the fastening bracket. Also, by inserting and rotating a separately formed fixing lever in the fastening bracket, the hinge plate is fixed.
Also, in Korean Patent Publication Nos. 1999-0063575 and 1999-026937, which are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety, a hinge plate pivotably coupled to a door is coupled to a fixing bracket mounted on a refrigerator main body, and the fixing bracket is provided with a lever for pressing and fixing the hinge plate in a vertical rotation. After the lever is inserted in the fixing bracket, it is pressed to fix the hinge plate.
However, the above related art has the following limitations.
The above-described examples of the related art are all configured with a fixing lever or lever formed as a detachable separate member to fix a hinge plate during the process of attaching or detaching a door.
That is, when detaching the hinge plate, the fixing lever or the lever is rotated to perform unlocking, and the fixing lever or the lever must be detached in order to separate the hinge plate from the main body.
Accordingly, the fixing lever or lever can be misplaced during disassembly and assembly processes, and, should such a misplacement occur, it presents a major problem that prevents the door from being mounted.